Prevue Guide Forums

Agree entirely on this, the Atari code has lots of error checking in it, and will clear the data and start again at the slightest thing being not what it expected - clearly designed to be able to extend the commands and command set, while leaving older revisions unaffected.

Well, remember, the EPG Jr. and EPG Sr. units came first (sucking data from WGN on Satcom F3, transponder 3 at the time), and only in 1988 did Prevue Guide come along (on Satcom F4 transponder 8), sucking data from that feed's video VBI instead of WGN's. So it's easily possible that F4-08's VBI data was in a revised format just for the PGs, while the EPG Jrs/Srs stayed on F3-03 and continued sucking data there in the old format.

I don't know this as fact. Only speculating. And what tin says about the Atari code probably, if anything, suggests both data streams were identical after all, anyway.

In any case, since I'm the one who re-wrote the entire history section of Wikipedia's TV Guide Channel article earlier this year, I'm hereby jumping into this thread simply to say: feel free to rip it for your wiki. It might make a good "overview" article, with you guys adding on super-technical additions from there.

swest77 wrote:Well, remember, the EPG Jr. and EPG Sr. units came first (sucking data from WGN on Satcom F3, transponder 3 at the time), and only in 1988 did Prevue Guide come along (on Satcom F4 transponder 8), sucking data from that feed's video VBI instead of WGN's. So it's easily possible that F4-08's VBI data was in a revised format just for the PGs, while the EPG Jrs/Srs stayed on F3-03 and continued sucking data there in the old format.

I don't know this as fact. Only speculating. And what tin says about the Atari code probably, if anything, suggests both data streams were identical after all, anyway.

In any case, since I'm the one who re-wrote the entire history section of Wikipedia's TV Guide Channel article earlier this year, I'm hereby jumping into this thread simply to say: feel free to rip it for your wiki. It might make a good "overview" article, with you guys adding on super-technical additions from there.

Sounds good!